This episode: Peter Owen Jones continues his year long religious odyssey with a gruelling journey exploring the spiritual traditions of Africa. Peter sets off hoping to get a glimpse of man's first experience of the divine. His journey begins with the ancient practice of Voodoo in Benin, where he is confronted by ritual practices that contradict his own deeply held religious convictions. He is forced to decide whether he should even take part. In the continent where all human life began, Peter travels to Botswana to meet the San Bushmen, inheritors of the earliest religious faith on earth. In South Africa he discovers surprising new developments in religious belief when he meets the members of the 12th Apostolic Church and finds Afrikaners who believe the world is about to come to an end. In Ethiopia he finds a group of one of the world's youngest religions - Rastafarians - who have set up a Utopian community in this harsh and unforgiving land. His journey reaches its emotional conclusion in the highlands of northern Ethiopia where members of Africa's oldest Christian church have gathered. Faith 21: Voodoo – Mamywata: Benin fishermen in Cotonou perform ritual to serpent goddess Mamywata. -- Faith 22: Voodoo – Gris Gris: Visits the fetish market in Cotonou, Benin to see various dead animal parts. Practitioners claim these heal common ailments. -- Faith 24: San Trance Dance: San Bushmen from near Ghanzi, Botswana, perform a trance dance and reflect on modern encroachments on their religious practice. -- Faith 25: Zulu Sangomas: Visits a Zulu Sangoma in Johannesburg, South Africa to contact the spirit of the ancestors. -- Faith 26: Twelfth Apostolic Church: Witnesses an outdoor prayer meeting in Hillbrow, Johannesburg, South Africa, where rituals involving healing and protection through the intercession of the Holy Spirit are key. -- Faith 27: Afrikaner Calvinism: Attends a prayer meeting at home in Groot Marico, South Africa where worshippers believe the world will end by 2020. -- Faith 28: Rastafari: Visits a community of Jamaicans, four hours drive from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia who believe Haile Selassie I is their messiah and that they are now in Zion. -- Faith 29: Ethiopian Islam: Visits a tearoom beside a mosque in Negash, Tigray, Ethiopia to chew khat. -- Faith 30: Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity: Witnesses a church service for the feast of St Michael at the Church of Mikael Imba, Tigray, Ethiopia and is moved to tears by the warmth of human love he witnesses. [Info from Wikipedia entry]

Pete Owen Jones presents the definitive guide to faith on earth, with eighty rituals across six continents in the space of a year.